Rachel Whiteread

Ghost13 June – 27 July 1990

Ghost's solid negative impression of the inside of the room bears all the traces of door, window, fireplace and other architectural features on the exterior of the object. The room is from 486 Archway Road, an unassuming Victorian terrace house in North London.

Transplanted into the gallery, it becomes a room within a room, with all its memories and events sealed anonymously inside it. In this work, Whiteread reverses the conventions of walking into and viewing a room. The new location transforms the associations of its subject; the large white walled gallery space raises the status of the room to that of a prized art object. Ghost affords the viewer a unique view of a familiar space. The work defines a space, not by its walls, ceiling and floor, but by everything that goes on within it.

Rachel Whiteread was born in London in 1963. Between 1982 and 1987 she trained at Brighton Polytechnic and the Slade School of Art.